Berachiah ben Natronai HaNakdan. Mishlei Shu’alim [Hebrew version of Aesop’s Fables] <<*BOUND WITH:>> Four other works.

The 12th-13th century Hebrew grammarian, translator, and scholar Berechiah's appellation "HaNakdan" ("The Punctuator") reflects his professional expertise: adding the vowel-points to Hebrew bibles and prayer books. Born and trained in Normandy, Berechiah worked for a time in England but was so unimpressed by the lack of religious standards within Anglo-Jewry, he determined to produce a collection of ethically instructive animal fables to help remedy the situation. Mishlei Shu’alim (Fox Fables), his most celebrated work, adapts much of its content from the French-language fable collection of Marie de France (c. 1170) and from a now lost Latin version of Aesop. This European Aesopian tradition is married by Berechiah to the biblical and talmudic traditions, with the result that the animals converse in a Biblical Hebrew interspersed with talmudic quotations.